Panel Urges Better Gathering of Gun-Violence Data

By SABRINA TAVERNISE

June 5, 2013

WASHINGTON — A panel of experts convened in response to the school shooting last year in Newtown, Conn., gave the federal government an ambitious set of priorities on Wednesday for research on guns, ending what experts said has been a 17-year hiatus in the study of gun violence after Congress took away federal money for the topic in the 1990s.

President Obama has included $10 million for gun-related research in his 2014 budget, the first federal financing for the topic in years, and the panel’s chairman, Alan I. Leshner, said the report was a first step to deepen evidence about the public health implications of guns. The panel was assembled by the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council at President Obama’s request.

“Policies are made on the basis of facts and values, and we are the facts people,” said Mr. Leshner, who is the chief executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “We are trying to provide a tool for the country to address this very difficult issue more productively than it has been able to do in the past.”

Among the panel’s recommendations was a call for better data on guns. For example, there is no national count of how many guns there are in the country. And while federal law enforcement authorities, like the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, gather data on specific guns, they track only those used in crimes, and often the details are not accessible to researchers. One database, the National Violent Death Reporting System, which compiles information on deaths from police departments and medical examiners’ offices, covers only about a third of the states.

“Basic information about gun possession, distribution, ownership, acquisition and storage is lacking,” the experts concluded. They added that “without good data, it is virtually impossible to answer fundamental questions” about gun violence or to evaluate programs intended to reduce that violence.

Public health researchers, who have long complained that a lack of solid information hobbles their work, applauded the request. But it may prove contentious. Many gun advocates have opposed additional reporting requirements, warning that more detailed information begins to look a lot like a national gun registry, which they have vigorously opposed and which federal law explicitly bans.

Customers at a gun shop in Sarasota, Fla., in January. There is no national count of how many guns there are in the country, and information about possession, distribution, ownership, acquisition and storage is also lacking, Wednesday’s report said.

Brian Blanco / Reuters

A spokesman for the National Rifle Association said that the organization’s researchers were reviewing the report, which was more than 90 pages long. He did not immediately have a comment.

Mr. Leshner emphasized that the panel was not recommending that federal authorities create a registry. Common databases that combine different sources of information and are publicly accessible could have people’s identities stripped out, he said, much as databases of genetic information do. Such data would also help in evaluations of interventions to reduce gun violence.

“We need a science base so we are not wasting money on things that don’t work,” he said.

Experts said that the panelists’ efforts were prodigious, but that it remained to be seen how much their recommendations would advance research. Progress will depend on financing from Congress, which recently voted down measures endorsed by President Obama with bipartisan support.

“I’m elated that the Institute of Medicine was asked to do this,” said Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. “This is a very important step forward.”

Still, “given that we are in very lean budget times, the C.D.C. will be faced with difficult decisions about setting priorities,” he added, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The panel also recommended that researchers look into patterns of gun ownership across demographic groups, how young people get access to guns, and the potential risks and benefits of having a gun at home. To make their recommendations, panelists reviewed scientific literature and identified gaps in knowledge.

Some lines of inquiry were rejected as not worth pursuing. Ronald C. Kessler, a professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School, led a discussion on whether media, including television and video games, were a motivating factor for gun violence.

He said the panel “looked deeply” into the question and concluded that it was not a research priority.